The tech community is buzzing at the news that Microsoft has made an unsolicited US$44.6 billion offer to acquire Yahoo and word is that Yahoo is actually considering it very seriously. The potential merger has long been rumored and there are many reasons for which it could actually make a lot of sense for both companies. A question, though, remains as to who the winners and losers are in that deal. Topline, it’s clear that Microsoft and Yahoo benefit from this and clear that it doesn’t benefit Google. But who else? Let’s look at the deal and try to figure it outs Winners OpenID: Only a few days ago, Yahoo announced support for OpenID, a system that allows users to use their yahoo credentials as a way to login to other services. Surprisingly, this was the goal of Microsoft Passport (now knows as Windows Live ID), almost a decade ago. A pairing between Microsoft and Yahoo could represent a major win for OpenID, especially if the partnership extends Yahoo’s commitment to Windows. One could see OpenID being incorporated with Active Directory in the future, leaving any non-openID provider in a lurch. AT&T: Yahoo has a partnership with AT&T for IPTV….

AOL and Microsoft have announced an end to their feud. It seems to me that there is a lot in there that needs to be dissected and pondered about. It will impact the development of the Internet for years to come. IM : One of the conditions for the AOL/Time Warner merger was that AOL open its instant messaging platform to other parties. By agreeing to interoperability between the AOL IM client and MSN messenger one, AOL will now be able to point to its “openness” while maintaining a relatively tight control over the progress of that tool. I am sure the two companies are interested in working together and somehow doubt that they will be very interested in opening the world to other competitors. At the current time, IM has taken the consumer world by storm and is starting to make headway in the enterprise. Because of its presence concept (you can see whether the people on your buddy list are online right now or not), it will eventually become a critical tool in the enterprise, moving some data traffic from the phone and email to this new platform. Already today, enterprises that have implemented IM solutions are seeing…

“For sale, Internet historical documents and legal trouble. Call Deja.com for details.” This is not exactly the way Deja.com presented themselves but ultimately, this may be what transpires from their recent attempt to put the Usenet archives on sale. Usenet History For those of you who have never heard of Usenet, here’s a quick definition from the Usenet FAQ: Usenet is a world-wide distributed discussion system. It consists of a set of “newsgroups” with names that are classified hierarchically by subject. “Articles” or “messages” are “posted” to these newsgroups by people on computers with the appropriate software — these articles are then broadcast to other interconnected computer systems via a wide variety of networks.Some newsgroups are “moderated”; in these newsgroups, the articles are first sent to a moderator for approval before appearing in the newsgroup. Usenet is available on a wide variety of computer systems and networks, but the bulk of modern Usenet traffic is transported over either the Internet or UUCP. To put it simply, prior to the web, Usenet was what defined the Internet as a community. It covers subjects ranging from politics to computing, arts to news, and everything in between. Usenet, to the old timers was…